The students in Ellen Stoneburner's reading class compiled a quilt decorated with drawings inspired by a book about Tubman's life.

Each chapter of the book was illustrated for the quilt, which was sewn together by Watkinsville resident Kathy Lewis, the parent-volunteer coordinator for the school's PTO.

Tubman was involved in the famous ''Underground Railroad'' that secreted slaves from their Southern owners and smuggled them to freedom in the North. During 19 trips to the South she escorted more than 300 slaves to freedom and never lost one. So despised was she by slave owners, that a reward of up to $40,000 was offered for her capture.

The quilt was a class project inspired by this remarkable woman's life.

''We decided we wanted to make a real quilt,'' said student Laura Dill, ''and we found out that Mrs. Lewis knew how to make quilts so she helped us. The way we started is that each one of us took a certain chapter in the book and drew it on paper, then put the cloth squares over the paper and traced the drawings and then colored them.

''Mrs. Lewis sewed them into the quilt and did the border. And then we stitched around the main object.''

Ryan Sledge said he illustrated the chapter ''Go on or Die.''

Harriet Ross Tubman

Background:

Born about 1820 into slavery near Cambridge, Md., she became a field hand about age 12. She died in 1913 at her home in New York.

Underground Railroad:

She fled slavery in 1840s when her master died, and her future was uncertain. In Pennsylvania, she joined the abolitionist movement and the ''Underground Railroad.'' In 1857 she smuggled her own parents out of slavery. During the Civil War (1861-65), she served as a nurse and spy for the Union Army in South Carolina. She faced great dangers during her trips into the South, where many black people referred to her as ''Moses.''

Tubman's home in Auburn, N.Y., has been designated as a historical landmark. She purchased the home in the 1850s from William Seward, who was then a U.S. senator from New York. In the 1940s, the AME Zion Church raised $30,000 to save the home, which was slated for demolition. It is open now for tours.

''In this chapter, she was taking slaves out of these plantations. Also one of them wanted to give up and go back, but she said you'll have to go or die,'' he said.

Historians said Tubman carried a pistol to make sure that none of the slaves tried to leave once they became fugitives.

Carleigh Thomas had the chapter ''Wagonload of Bricks.''

Thomas said this chapter described how Tubman and some slaves concealed themselves inside a wagonload of bricks to make their escape from an area where she feared that bounty hunters were on her trail.

And once a quilt played an important role for Tubman.

Greg McElhannon made a ''quilt'' drawing for one section of the real quilt because he learned that Tubman made a patchwork quilt, which was used to pay someone in an escape in the ''Underground Railroad.''